New USPTO treatment of business methods

Managing Intellectual PropertySeptember 2014

Robert Fischer and Leslie Kushner examine the effects on business methods patents and pending business methods patent applications resulting from the USPTO Preliminary Examination Instructions for determining patent eligibility of business methods claims, issued in response to the Alice Corporation Pty, Ltd v. CLS Bank International et al. Supreme Court decision finding that a business method is not patent eligible if it recites an abstract idea without including an “inventive concept.”